Van driving, what to do when I can’t see left?
Discussion
I do a fair few lot of miles in my lwb high top van, I go all over the country so often on roads I’ve never used and inevitably get to junctions where I physically can’t see left due to the road to the left coming from and accute angle and having no rear quarter view as in a car.
I can usually anticipate this type of junction as I clock them on the sat Nav and am able to position my van at an angle on the junction to enable myself to see. However in some occasions it’s just impossible to do so.
In the above situations there are usually only two options or is there something I’m missing?
The first is to very slowly edge out until can see it’s clear or until I can see a vehicle that has stopped to let me out.
The second is to check that the road to my right is clear and if so start to slowly move my van out to the right keeping it in the right hand lane so I can use my rear view mirror to see if it is clear from behind, if so proceed if not wait etc. However doing this can cause any traffic coming from the left to panic as they think I’m going to pull out on them and I’m not entirely sure if it is a “legal” manoeuvre.
The only other option I can think of is to turn left then find somewhere safer further up the road to turn around and continue however again from looking in the sat nav this could mean adding a lot of extra miles before finding somewhere suitable to do so.
I can usually anticipate this type of junction as I clock them on the sat Nav and am able to position my van at an angle on the junction to enable myself to see. However in some occasions it’s just impossible to do so.
In the above situations there are usually only two options or is there something I’m missing?
The first is to very slowly edge out until can see it’s clear or until I can see a vehicle that has stopped to let me out.
The second is to check that the road to my right is clear and if so start to slowly move my van out to the right keeping it in the right hand lane so I can use my rear view mirror to see if it is clear from behind, if so proceed if not wait etc. However doing this can cause any traffic coming from the left to panic as they think I’m going to pull out on them and I’m not entirely sure if it is a “legal” manoeuvre.
The only other option I can think of is to turn left then find somewhere safer further up the road to turn around and continue however again from looking in the sat nav this could mean adding a lot of extra miles before finding somewhere suitable to do so.
normalbloke said:
I have eased out onto the right hand side of the road, when clear to do so,slowly, so as to enable a view of the left hand side of the road in your n/s mirror and then moved back across when safe. Right or wrong, it was slow and as safe as I could make it without any outside assistance.
This is what I did earlier this week and what has raised the question in my mind since, I was wondering if strictly speaking I was in the wrong doing this. Gassing Station | Advanced Driving | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff